Ourika

Ourika

A few months had elapsed since I quitted Montpellier to follow my profession as physician in Paris, when I was sent for one morning to attend a sick Nun at a convent in the Faubourg St. Jacques. Napoleon had a short time since permitted several of these convents to be re-established: the one I was going to belonged to the order of the Ursuline Sisters, and was opened for the education of young females. Part of the edifice had been destroyed during the Revolution. The cloister was laid bare on one side by the demolition of an antique chapel, of which but a few arches remained. One of the nuns led me through this cloister. As we traversed it I perceived that the broad flat stones that paved it were tombs: they all bore inscriptions half effaced; some were broken, others quite torn up. I had never yet seen the interior of a convent, and felt curious to witness a scene so new to me. My conductress led the way into the garden, where she said we should find our sick patient. I beheld her seated at a distance at one end of a bower, almost entirely enveloped in a long black veil. "Here is the physician," said her companion, and immediately left us. I approached timidly, for my heart had sickened at the sight of the tombs; and I fancied that I should now contemplate another victim of the cloister. The prejudices of my youth had just been awakened, and a considerable interest excited in my mind from the kind of malady I had imagined for her. She turned towards me, and I was singularly surprised on beholding a black woman. Her polite address and choice of words increased my astonishment, "You are come, Sir, to visit a very sick person," said she, "and one who greatly wishes to get better, though she has not always wished it, and that perhaps has been the cause of her long sufferings." I questioned her as to the nature of them. "I feel," replied she, "continual oppression and fever, and sleep has quite forsaken me." Her emaciated appearance confirmed this account of herself. Her figure was tall, but indescribably, meagre. Her large brilliant eyes and very white teeth lit up the rest of her features. It was plain that violent and lengthened grief had worn her frame, though her soul still retained its powers. Her melancholy aspect moved me. I resolved to exert every means of saving her, and mentioned the necessity of subduing her evidently heightened imagination, and diverting her mind from what might give it pain. "I am perfectly happy!" cried she; "I have never felt so happy and so calm as I do at present." The sweet and sincere tone in which this was uttered persuaded me, though it again surprised me. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49315
Author: Duras, Claire de Durfort
Release Date: Jun 29, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English